If you are looking to promote your blog one of the most prominent methods currently being employed by many blog owners is to write guest articles on other sites. There are several benefits of guest writing including…
– Reaching out to the blog owner’s audience
– Driving relevant traffic to your site
– Increasing awareness of your brand
– Building links from related sites
However to be successful at this you need to deploy the correct methods both in terms of how and who you approach, as well as deciding which type of content you want to produce. Do this process incorrectly and you will fail to enjoy the maximum benefit from your guest posting activities. Below we have compiled the top 7 things you need to avoid when guest posting…
1. Approaching the wrong sites
You will find that there is an increasing number of sites that are open to guest bloggers. The reason for this is that a high quality guest blog will benefit not only the guest blogger but also the blog owner through increased traffic to their site, a greater number of social media citations and an increase in the volume of backlinks. With so many blogs to choose from it can be tempting to take a ‘scattergun’ approach and fire out hundreds of guest post requests to see how many you can get accepted. This is without question entirely the wrong approach to take. Instead, you should be looking to approach quality sites within your industry or niche. This may be slower and you may get fewer acceptances; however the ones you do get will count much more than having lots of low quality guest posts pointing at your site.
2. Sending a template email
Anyone who runs a popular blog that accepts guest posts will no doubt have been a recipient of this kind of outreach email at some point..
Dear Webmaster,
I noticed you accept guest blogs and I would like to ask if you would allow me to write one for you. I can provide a quality and informative article of at least 500 words that I am sure will be of interest to your readers. All I request is that you allow me to place one backlink to my site from within the article itself.
Looking forward to your response on the matter,
Yours faithfully,
A Site Owner,
www.awebsite.com
Notice how it says “Dear Webmaster” because the person who sent the email cannot be bothered to find out the name of the person who owns the site. Not only is this impersonal, it also demonstrates they have not had a proper look through the website itself to see if it would be a good match. Remember that popular blog owners receive dozens of requests to guest post so you need to catch their attention and make your email standout from the crowd. Sending out hundreds of bulk, templated outreach emails will result in a much lower response rate, so make sure you invest time and effort into each one you send.
3. Dictating the format of the article
One thing blog owners do not appreciate is when the person sending the outreach email specifies in advance the proposed format of their guest article, specifically with regard to the linking policy. Therefore you must avoid making any such demands, particularly, with regard to which links appear in the article. This again can be a source of frustration as the majority of blog owners publish guidelines that cover their own sites linking policy and trying to openly flout these rules only proves once again that you did not take the time to research their site properly.
4. Not giving a good reason why should be allowed to post
A good guest blog post should add value to a website, and importantly provide something that has not already been covered by the blog owner. Thus when approaching a site owner you need to give them a good reason why they should let you be their next guest blogger. Why does your guest blog title suit their site, why will the article be of interest to their readers? Remember the owner of a quality blog will not be short of people offering to write for them which means webmasters will only ever want to publish content that enhances their site. A good tip is to always check through existing posts to ensure what you are proposing has not been covered already. If it has, ensure your proposed title has enough differentiation that it will add value to the site. For example you could take one topic that has already covered and then provide a counter argument or critique.
5. Not proving your worth and writing ability
In your guest post email you may want to state that you are a competent writer that can produce high quality content. However the site owner has no means of verifying this, unless they happen to have read one of your existing posts (unlikely). In which case you should, where you feel it is appropriate, offer previous examples of guest posts that you have written. If you have written for another notable blog within a particular niche this may help reassure the blog owner that you can provide them with a worthwhile piece of content. Remember guest blog posting benefits both parties and sites that accept guest posts will want more content if it is of a high standard.
6. Stating the obvious
The vast majority of blog owners are fully aware of the benefits that high quality, unique content can bring to their site. For this reason it is not necessary and in fact wholly inappropriate to start lecturing them about the benefits your guest blog will bring to them. Do not on any occasion mention the fact that your guest article will help them to ‘improve their search engine rankings’, ‘deliver more traffic’ or ‘gain them more backlinks’. If you are to mention any benefits, explain how your guest blog idea will benefit their readers specifically.
7. Being overly formal in your approach
Most blogs are operated by an individual or a group of individuals, rather than by a business or corporation. Therefore it is not necessary to approach them in a formal manner such as “Dear Owner of abc.com”. Most blogs have an ‘about’ section where you can find out information about the site owner, including of course their name. As you are attempting to strike up a relationship with that blogger you should create an outreach email that is polite and courteous rather than one that is formal in tone. Avoid being overly verbose in your approach or writing reams and reams about why they should let you blog on your site. The correct approach is to be concise, informal and friendly without of course being too casual, for example using slang or bad language.
By Guest Author – Simon Rattray is a regular blogger coming from a background in online marketing. He is also the owner of retirement website 123annuityrates.co.uk.
